


Crash Landing

by TheoMiller



Series: trust [1]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, No Delta Quadrant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 20:51:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11238957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheoMiller/pseuds/TheoMiller
Summary: The USS Voyager is sent to apprehend the Maquis ship Val Jean, only to find that it has crash-landed on an uninhabited planet called Cryptarius III. But the danger lurking on the planet below means Janeway will have to work with the Maquis, and their leader.





	Crash Landing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fate-motif (Jo_Girard)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jo_Girard/gifts).



> The universe in which this story takes place is a reworking of canon. The characters are the same people, with minor divergences to their histories which I will enumerate some other time. It will be a series, updated sporadically. The plot will be very different, even when familiar premises and characters are introduced.
> 
> For now, all you need to know is this:  
> 1, the Val Jean has been scaled down, and is now more comparable to Firefly's Serenity than something like Voyager or even the Defiant.  
> 2, Tom Paris never left the Maquis and therefore never went to prison.
> 
> Jo: I cannot write the perfect Voyager you deserve, but I'm at least going to try, dammit.

The Val Jean, for all that it was a forty year old rusted out junk heap kept running by sheer Klingon force of will, survived crash landing pretty well. Harry reported no structural damage from his scans, although the ship's layout didn't match any known blueprint of the model. No doubt significant modifications had been made.

"Anything from Tuvok?" Janeway asked.

"Nothing." There was an edge of anxiety to Harry's voice, and she smiled a bit, trying to project reassurance.

"No news is good news, ensign," she said. "If we were about to walk into an ambush, Tuvok would find a way to tell us."

Just to reassure herself, though, she double-checked Tuvok's vitals. That was, if it could still be called _double_ checking, considering that made fourteen times. She'd handled only a few officers sent on undercover missions since being promoted into command, and they were all nerve-wracking, but at least none of them had been Tuvok; he was the most logical choice, of course, but logic didn't really help in these situations, regardless of what the scientific method (and Tuvok) claimed. He could more than take care of himself – not even Klingons matched Vulcans in strength, and not even other Vulcans could best his tactical mind – and he'd disapprove of her emotionally fraught state.

"Stadi, Cavit, Kim, with me. Honigsburg, T'Ral, you're in charge the bridge until we get back. Dr. Fitzgerald, be prepared to receive injured, the Maquis don't make a habit of going down without a fight."

"You'd best make sure Paris doesn't get much more than a nerve pinch," Fitzgerald said. "I don't want to explain to the little punk's father why we used force on his precious baby terrorist."

Janeway gave her CMO a cutting look and made a mental note to write him up for failing to demonstrate proper decorum.

She turned to the communications officer. "Honigsburg, any luck with unscrambling whatever signal they've got blocking out life signs?"

"Nothing," he said.

She nodded to herself. "All right," she addressed her away team. "We're going in blind, so I want everyone on high alert. Please try not to shoot without thinking. That ship is a disaster waiting to happen. If we hit something with a phaser pulse, there's no telling what might happen. There are four crew members, but remember, one of them is on our side. _If_ you have to use a phaser, make damn sure it's on stun.

"Don't let them get behind you. Don't acknowledge that we know Tuvok as anything more than another fugitive. And most importantly, I will throw you in the brig if you come back with a single hair on your heads harmed."

Cavit rolled his eyes, never having liked that part of her briefings; Stadi smiled in acknowledgement of the joke; Harry Kim looked briefly startled, and then cautiously amused.

"Sir?" He said uncertainly. "Uh, I mean, ma'am—was that a joke?"

"It's Captain," said Janeway, for the half dozenth time.

-+-+-+-

The ship was quiet. No systems were running.

Cavit attached the fuse to the hatch and armed it, then stepped back and gave her a nod.

"Detonate it," she told him.

He pressed the button, and then… dropped. For a second, Janeway thought he'd somehow detonated the fuse on his person, but then she recognized the mark of some kind of crude energy weapon.

"Get down," she said, and grabbed Ensign Kim by the collar and pulled him down, trusting Stadi to do it on her own. She did, ducking half-under the side of the ship to the scant cover of the landing gear, and then motioned to Kim to join her.

They shuffled over, Janeway trying to stand between the two crew members and the threat. Another laser pulse hit the sand just a hand's breadth from their position. The angle was all wrong to be one of the crew from the Val Jean, who hadn't left the ship. She tried to engage her comm badge, but to no avail. With a sinking feeling, she began to suspect that they were cut off completely from the ship above.

"I think this is sufficient cover," she said. "Stay here, I'll try to broker peace with the Maquis, or at least contact the ship to beam you back."

"Permission to move position if an opportunity presents itself?" Stadi asked, eyeing an outcrop of rock nearby that might let her return fire.

Janeway glanced at it, and then nodded. "Don't take any unnecessary risks," she said, and reached out to hit the detonator still clutched in Cavit's hand.

The hatch's locking mechanism broke open.

She climbed up and in as quickly as she could, wincing when the door took a hit from the same unidentified weapon.

Immediately a set of hands grabbed her upper arms and hauled her up. She was face-to-face with Chakotay himself, the captain of the Maquis ship, and the man she'd been sent here to arrest in the first place. She opened her mouth to say _something_ , anything, to convince him not to knock her out, but was forestalled by a crudely modified blaster being foisted off upon her.

"I don't have time to explain – trust me, hold this," he said.

Janeway found herself off kilter. "Mr. Chakotay—" she started, but she wasn't sure how to finish that, and he was already leaving.

She followed him. "Just what do you think you're doing?" She demanded. More importantly, why was she objecting?

He paused to get another gun of the same sort out of a nook that looked perfectly innocuous, nestled against a bulkhead. "Saving the lives of my crew, you and everyone on your ship, and untold dozens more. Are you going to use that blaster, or arrest me and try to rescue civilians you don't even know are here?"

She narrowed her eyes. Inexplicably, everything that had happened til now pointed to him telling the truth. And now, looking into his gaze, backlit with a fire from within,  the heat of conviction… she believed him.

"You still shoot the way you did on your last competency test?" She asked.

He grinned, just the smallest bit, but it lit up his warm brown eyes even more. "Better," he said.

"Good," she said, "because I have two crew members outside, using your ship for cover."

Chakotay frowned. "Only two?"

"The third was hit."

He activated his comm device. "We've got two uniforms pinned down below. Haul them up and read them in, we'll need every hand we can get. Captain, tell your ship to stand by, they've got more than enough firepower to damage your warp core if they enter the atmosphere."

"Who are they?"

"They're called the Kazon. There's a lot of different Kazon, but these ones are slavers."

"I've never heard of the Kazon," Janeway said suspiciously.

"Now you have."

-+-+-+-

For a split second, Harry was too relieved to worry about who had pulled him through the access panel and into the Val Jean. Then he thought, _that panel wasn't on the blueprints_ , and then he looked up at the engineer responsible for both the modification and the rescue.

B'Elanna Torres looked back down at him and Stadi, her expression absolutely unimpressed, hands on her hips. Beside her, Tom Paris had a phaser aimed almost casually at them. He'd also taken their phasers, and tucked them into a bag slung over his shoulder with his free hand.

"Sorry about your friend," Tom said.

"Is he the one who destroyed the cargo hatch?"

"Technically, it was the captain," said Stadi. "You gonna shoot me if I stand up, Mr. Paris?"

"Unfortunately, we need you," B'Elanna replied. "So no. Which of you knows their way around an engine room?" She added.

Harry looked at Stadi, who glanced sideways at him. "I did an engineering focus in my operations track," he said haltingly. Paris lowered the gun.

"Then you're with me, Starfleet," B'Elanna said.

"Lucky me," he said.

Tom Paris offered Stadi a hand, and she turned to Harry. "You can trade with me any time," she said.

"I'll stick to the engine, I think."

Stadi sighed.

"I'm hurt, I want you to know that," Paris said, but he was grinning. Stadi rolled her eyes, but followed him without taking his hand.

Harry looked at Torres. She eyed him suspiciously. "We saved you, you owe us," she said. "Think about that before you try anything stupid. If anyone's a prisoner here, it's you."

"If we're in danger, maybe it should matter less who's whose prisoner and more what we're going to do to get out of this mess," he said boldly.

Her eyes narrowed even more, and then she seemed to take that better than he'd anticipated, tossing him a wrench.

-+-+-+-

"I'm Tom, by the way."

"I know," she said, rolling her eyes. "I was here to arrest you."

"Was?" He grinned. "Are you rethinking things now, having seen the wisdom of our point of view, or have you just accepted that you'll never be able to catch us?"

"Oh, it's going to happen. I just meant my original purpose has been waylaid now, but I'm _sure_ I'll get back to it before this is done."

"Can I get a name of my future captor?"

She side-eyed him speculatively. "Stadi," she told him.

"You know, Stadi, under different circumstances, I think I'd let you take me into custody," he stressed the word _let_ , which made her roll her eyes. "But my captain is in trouble, so we'll put that on the back burner for now. Maybe later, though," he added with a wink.

"You always fly at warp speed at every girl you meet?" Stadi asked.

"Only ones as pretty as you," he said, meaning every word. Then he grinned even wider. "Besides, we're both pilots, you know faster is better."

"How about you hurry up and tell me what's going on here, then?" She shot back.

Oh, she was fun. "Sure thing," he said. He pointed towards the vague direction of the rocky outcrop that hid the cave entrances. "Bad guys, in those ridges. Captives and more bad guys in the caves below. Lots of guns – you saw what they did to your buddy back there, before we saved you. Luckily, B'Elanna's kept the shields holding, or we'd be ashes."

Just as he said that, the ship was rocked by an impact, and sparks flew from a nearby panel. They were knocked into each other briefly. Tom was pretty sure she pulled away from him slower than she might've otherwise. He was definitely making in-roads here.

"Lucky," Stadi repeated, with a dubious look at the panel.

He affected unconcern. "Well, that's why she stole your ensign. Don't worry," he added, when that just made Stadi frown more, "if it can be fixed, B'Elanna will fix it, and she'll keep an eye on him, Starfleet or not."

-+-+-+-

Captain Janeway handled the gun with an ease that was both worrying and comforting—much as he mistrusted Starfleet, it was good to have someone around with formal training. Tom didn't count, because his training had been corrupted by action adventure holonovels and a focus on piloting, and B'Elanna's instructors had apparently agreed to keep her from the weapons courses as long as possible. He had Tuvok, of course, but Tuvok was currently handling the ship's main weapons system, which he'd rigged to be able to fire even though they were grounded.

"Captain," Tuvok said, in a surprisingly warm tone, without looking over his shoulder. "Or captains," he added more coolly. "I can provide a short period of cover, if you would like to charge in after our enemy, despite my warnings to the contrary."

"There are innocents in there, Tuvok," Chakotay reminded him.

"In caverns which we cannot scan. Fighting in enclosed, unfamiliar—"

"I appreciate your counsel, but we can't beam them out and we can't leave them., so we're going in. Unless you'd rather wait for Command to authorize a strike team, so you can keep your hands clean," he added to Janeway.

She met his gaze with a steely one of her own. "Mr. Tuvok, you say it can't be scanned?"

"Negative," he said. "The stone resists any kind of scanning. No doubt your system said the planet was uninhabited."

"It did. Which makes me wonder whether this is a trap of some sort."

"To what end?" Tuvok asked.

Chakotay looked at Janeway expectantly as she – briefly, thankfully – mulled this over. "Your operation, then, Captain Chakotay," she said. "We'll settle our differences after everyone's been secured. Now?"

"Waiting for my pilot," he said.

Sure enough, the faint vibration of footsteps was Tom, followed by a woman in Starfleet red, with sharply intelligent brown eyes that cut around the cockpit before settling on him and Janeway. "If you'll vouch for her, I'll arm her," he told Janeway.

"Where's Ensign Kim?" Janeway asked immediately.

"He's assisting their engineer," reported the younger woman, who had an air of respect for Janeway that Chakotay took as a good sign (you could spot a decent leader by the way their followers acted), and the pips of a lieutenant.

"Mission parameters have changed," she told her crewman. "We have hostiles in the mountain range northeast of here, and they have civilians captive. I'm mounting a rescue mission with our… _unlikely_ allies. You can stay aboard, if you'd like. I won't order you into this, and we need someone to monitor our Vulcan friend here anyway, in case he decides to rabbit."

Chakotay glanced at Tom, who shrugged a little. _No problems here_ , Tom's little hand gesture said. _Fair point about the Vulcan_ , his expression added.

"What's our plan of attack?" The lieutenant asked.

"We're deferring to Mr. Chakotay on that."

"Lieutenant Stadi," she introduced herself. "Time for a briefing, or will you just be passing me a weapon and pointing me towards the nearest fight to be had, in the traditional Maquis fashion?"

Chakotay didn't have time to point out that it was better than following orders blindly while ignoring the murder of civilians for the sake of _treaties_ and imperfect peace, but he did bare his teeth a little. "Group of people called Kazon. Taking slaves. Trying to sell them to renegade Cardassians. Shot us out of the sky. Trying to kill all of us now. That enough for you?"

Stadi turned to Paris. "My phaser?"

He handed it over.

"Let's go," Janeway said.

When Chakotay looked at her, she subsided. "Deferring," she repeated, and then turned to Stadi. "Follow them, within reason. I'm trusting you just the littlest bit, here, Captain," she told Chakotay. "Don't make me regret it."

"If you're not regretting it already, you're not paying attention," Tom muttered.

-+-+-+-

It turned out that Torres only needed Harry to hold things in place, pass along tools, and reconnect wires while she focused mainly on doing something to the field generator that seemed both incredibly volatile and unmistakably genius.

"Look out," she said, and then didn't give him time to get free before she attempted some sort of power shunt that would've blown them both to bits if her hands had slipped. "Heat means it's working," she told him, and then kicked a conduit behind him out of place.

"Try directing that this way, should prevent the oxidation reaction, the tellisodiate _probably_ won't kill us both before that."

Harry had to get a shoulder under the conduit to get it to point the way it needed to, and the piping dug into his shoulder, but it also freed up his hands to start tucking wires and lines back into place before one of the feet she braced against the grated floor could open one accidentally.

"Shit," she said, a moment or two later, and her hands scrabbled against the floor for a second as she tried to extricate herself from the innards of the ship, and she even hooked a foot around the nearest support structure to try and pull herself out. Harry reached out and hauled her free by her belt, a second before something heavy clunked into place where her head had been moments before.

She was breathing heavily, eyes wide with fear and adrenaline. "Oh," she said. "Thanks," she muttered, and rolled over.

"No problem," said Harry.

B'Elanna stripped her tunic off, leaving her in an undershirt that was already clinging to her with perspiration. "Don't get any ideas, Starfleet," she added.

"About getting the tellisodiate line hooked back up before we asphyxiate?" He said.

"I'll get the conduit back in place, but you have to anchor that power reroute so I can close the panel, or we'll roast."

They switched sides of the corridor – he marveled briefly at her strength, reflecting that it must be nice to have Klingon fortitude, when handling conduits heavier than yourself – and he managed to jury-rig a configuration where the rerouted power didn't seem like to jostle. He'd learned enough in the past few minutes to just move aside when she went to lift the diluthium panel back into place.

"I'll lock it in," he told her.

Once they'd secured the panel, they both paused, catching their breath. "Not bad, Starfleet."

"I saved your life, you could at least learn my name."

She glanced at him. "Fine."

He was briefly taken aback. "Harry," he said. "Uh, Harry Kim."

"B'Elanna," she replied tightly.

"Cool," he said, because 'I know' would probably piss her off.

And then there was the eardrum-straining whine of full power coming back online, and then the sound of someone firing a full phaser bank from a craft barely big enough to carry one. Harry grabbed a railing to keep the force of it from knocking him off his feet.

B'Elanna, meanwhile, looked pleased. "That's Tuvok," she said, with relish.

"What's he doing?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say he's distracting the Kazon so Chakotay and the others can make it safely across the open space."

Harry checked the nearby readout without even thinking about it, and then tensed, waiting for B'Elanna to drag him bodily away from the ship's system. But all she did was step closer to hover at his shoulder, expression stony, and monitor his actions. "Not messing with your ship," he said.

"I know," she said, "or you'd be on the ground right now."

The power readouts were clear. "Once the reserve power on the photon bank is depleted, you won't be able to recharge them until you reach a dilithium store."

"I know that. But the Kazon _don't_. Besides. My ship has a few more tricks up her sleeves."

-+-+-+-

"You two, that way," said Chakotay, pointing to the other entrance, which would be marginally less dangerous.

Tom nodded. Normally he'd ignore Chakotay and follow him, since he was a self-sacrificing idiot who needed constant backup (and Tuvok and B'Elanna could handle themselves with a squishy human like Tom along for the ride), but the Starfleet women were still unknown quantities.

"Any idea what these Kazon look like?" Stadi asked him, as they crept along the winding, narrow stone passageway.

"Reddish skin, weird foreheads, bad hair," he said. "Like those really awful xenophobic stereotypes of Klingons, but a solid 10 to 20% uglier."

She started to say something, but there was a flicker of movement over her shoulder, so Tom had to cut her off by shooting past her. The Kazon dropped, and Stadi immediately spun around to shoot his friend.

"They look like that," Tom said.

Stadi rolled her eyes. "Thanks for the save," she told him.

"Surprised the murderer bothered?"

Her eyebrows shot up, but she didn't deny it.

"I know what they say about me. They're not wrong, exactly. But I never wanted anyone to get hurt—except maybe Gul Evek." But Evek had had it coming.

She shot another Kazon as he came around the bend at them. "I believe you," she said. "For what it's worth, I'll put a word in at your trial."

"Don't you know? Admiral Paris has got that covered."

"From what I've heard, he's more likely to prolong your sentence," Stadi countered.

That brought him up short; he actually, briefly, stopped dead in his tracks, surprised anyone had picked up on that. In a bitterly ironic twist, that moment's stumble saved his life; the Kazon patrol that rushed them ran out right in front of him. He shot one, ducked the club the second swung at him, and tried to get to Stadi while the Kazon struggled to free his club from the stone.

The third Kazon shot Stadi point-blank with a phaser, a split second before both Stadi and Tom fired on him.

Stadi fell.

Tom side-stepped the second Kazon's renewed attack without actually thinking about it, like his entire body was on autopilot. He followed it up with a kick that sent the idiot head-first into the wall of the cave with a sickening crack, and then he was standing alone in the narrow stone passageway, surrounded by lifeless bodies. For a second, he was back on Caldik Prime.

There was phaser fire from somewhere in the distance, and he shook himself out of it. _Don't have time for this_. He checked Stadi's pulse, knowing it was too late, and then put Stadi's death into the mental box of things he was never going to think about and placed it firmly in the back of his mind. He picked up the Kazon weapons and Stadi's phaser, and then started towards the sound of fighting.

Chakotay would _definitely_ need backup.

-+-+-+-

"Behind you!"

Chakotay turned and slammed the butt of his gun into the Kazon's face, dropping him like a stone. "Thanks."

"Of course. I want to disarm one, see if we can get him to tell us where they're keeping their prisoners. Think we can manage that?"

"Certainly."

She nodded, and stepped up to the natural curve of the corridor, where she was obscured from either direction, and Chakotay took up a similar position opposite her.

But he kept glancing away from the possible entry points to look at her, frown lines settling between his brows despite his mouth staying in a neutral line.

"I don't think Kazon are going to appear from here," she said.

He snorted. "We'll hear them – and feel them – coming before we see them." It wasn't incorrect; the caves echoed and vibrated with every footfall, and the Kazon weren't the most subtle of species.

"Are you really anticipating a betrayal when you're the one watching my back?"

"No, I'm just curious."

Janeway gritted her teeth. "About?"

"Why you trusted me."

 _Because Tuvok gave me a nod to tell me you weren't lying about the slaves. Because you saved Kim and Stadi. Because you handed me a weapon. Because you looked kind –_ that wasn't objective.

"We can discuss that on the trip back to Federation space, or after your arraignment."

Chakotay rolled his eyes, and further conversation was forestalled by a telltale rumble of heavy boots on stone.

-+-+-+-

Tom came skidding around the bend in the corridor, where Chakotay's voice was audible but unintelligible, echoing strangely. He took the sight in front of him in a split second, paused to mentally berate his captain for being a reckless son of a bitch, and then double-checked to be sure that that was what he was seeing.

Chakotay holding a knife instead of his laser rifle, check. A very alive, very conscious Kazon right in front of Chakotay, check. Captain Janeway using her rifle to keep the Kazon in a chokehold, also check. Kazon's muscles tensed to kick his stupid-looking (but likely deadly) spiked boots right into Chakotay's unprotected stomach? _Check_.

Tom managed to shout a warning, nothing more than, "Captain!" before the Kazon could move.

Janeway threw the Kazon off-balance with a harsh yank on his neck, and Chakotay caught the flailing legs by the non-spiky ankles and held them still.

"Good work, Mr. Paris," said Janeway. "I almost didn't catch it in time."

"What the hell are you even doing? Shoot him already."

Chakotay smiled flatly, not looking away from staring down the Kazon. "We're finding out where the prisoners are. One way or another. Aren't we, Durrak?"

The Kazon – _Durrak_ – spat at him.

"If you don't tell us, we'll leave you alive to face your captain," Tom said.

That seemed to reach him. "You would not dare leave an enemy alive."

"Sure we would, if it suited us. Captain Janeway here, she's mortal enemies with Captain Chakotay, but it's not the Starfleet way to kill. She'll have no problem leaving you alive. Me, I don't have that problem." _Not after Stadi_ , though he quickly suppressed the thought. "I'll kill you. But first, you tell me where they are."

Durrak became much more helpful after that, so helpful that when he finished giving them detailed instructions on how to reach the civilians, Tom actually stunned him on the highest setting possible, so he'd be in rough shape when he did wake up.

Chakotay sighed. "Thanks," he said. "For not killing him."

"Yeah, yeah, rub my face in it," Tom muttered. Chakotay and his stupid, infectious moral code. Where had a moral code ever gotten him? Drummed out of Starfleet, and now on this suicide mission of a rescue. Best to just repress the hell out of that too.

"You can bitch about it later, for now we've got people to find," said Chakotay. He started off down the path that had been pointed out by their unconscious friend.

Janeway fell into step with Tom behind Chakotay. "Tom," she said softly.

He studied the ceiling. "Yeah?"

"Stadi," said Janeway, and then nothing else.

Tom bit his lip. He shook his head. _Didn't make it_.

Janeway didn't press the issue.

-+-+-+-

"Whoa," Tom came to a halt, and Janeway almost ran into him.

Annoyed, she brushed past to stand beside Chakotay and survey what had drawn them up short: the stone passageway widened in front of them, forming a large space filled with computer terminals and machinery.

"This must be some sort of control room," she said.

"We shouldn't leave this without sabotaging it," said Chakotay. "Tom, go on ahead, find the prisoners, do some recon if you can, stay back if you can't. And Tom? Recon _only_. Don't engage them alone."

"What about you?"

"I'm staying here. _Quickly_ , Tom."

Tom glanced at Janeway before he complied, a hard, searching look. She couldn't quite say what transpired in that look, but she felt rather like she'd been made caretaker to an eight year old with a death wish instead of a ship's captain from a terrorist organization.

"He's a good kid," she commented when he'd left.

Chakotay was tracing the tangles of wires and power supplies across the stone in search of an origin, but he paused to look at her. "Tom?"

"No, the other twenty year old pilot you've got running around committing crimes with you. Yes, Tom."

"He is a good kid. Makes you wonder why he's on my side, doesn't it?"

"There don't _have_ to be sides."

"Does that mean the Federation is going to recognize the needs of border planets and hold Cardassia accountable for their actions and—"

She gave him a disparaging look, and he raised his hands, ending the list of hot-button issues. "All right, we'll save the philosophy discussion for a later date," he said. "You were in science track, what is all this?"

"Security monitoring there, those three consoles. Those look like weapons systems. And this…" With a jolt, Janeway recognized the machine humming away quietly, hooked into the console that looked like it'd been cribbed from a Romulan exploratory vessel. "Well, this is something else entirely."

"A subspace signal disruptor," Chakotay said. "I should've known. Just didn't figure them for this kind of technology."

She barely managed to reach out and stop him from shooting it, and he looked at her incredulously as she pushed the barrel of his laser rifle down. "Your instincts were right, they didn't develop this tech. That's Romulan technology, and as paranoid as they tend to be about their research, I don't think they bring jammers on science missions. Looks more like Tal'Shiar handiwork."

"You think they stole it?" But he sounded considering, not dubious.

"I do. And knowing Romulans—" She checked the underside of the device. "Rigged to blow if it's fired on."

He looked at her with a sort of warm surprise. She tried not to grin in response; he was a fugitive, and impressing him should not be high on her list of priorities.

"Good catch. You know how to defuse these things, or shall I do the honors?"

"I'm not aware of any way to defuse something the Tal'Shiar doesn't want defused," she said.

Chakotay leaned over the device, and she moved closer to watch him work. "Worried I'll blow us up anyway?"

"Worried you have information the Federation doesn't."

"Well, it's not just Federation citizens who are disillusioned," he replied, and opened something that turned out to be the projector for a holo-keyboard in Romulan lettering. He squinted at it for a second, and then typed something in. DISRUPTER DISABLED, the display flashed.

He looked up at her with a triumphant smile, and she met his eyes. He was very close to her, close enough to double-cross her, and she couldn't quite summon up the fear that possibility properly demanded. "Impressed?"

"Marginally," she allowed. And then she stepped back to straighten her uniform and contact her crew. "Janeway to Voyager. Come in, Voyager."

Silence dragged on in response. She reached up to press the badge again, while Chakotay looked at her with wide eyes. "Janeway to Honigsburg. Janeway to T'Ral. Janeway to Fitzgerald. Janeway to…" She couldn't keep listing her senior crew and hearing silence. She switched tracks. "Janeway to Kim. Ensign, do you read me?"

"Kim here," Harry Kim's voice answered. "Comm systems just came back online. I can't reach Voyager."

"Have Ms. Torres and Mr. Tuvok scan the ship," she said.

"Aye, Captain." There was a pause. "Captain, he's only reading a few dozen crew, no more. A Kazon ship attacked them in orbit. They're offline, but B'Elanna thinks she can get in touch with them."

"Keep me updated, Ensign."

-+-+-+-

"Voyager, this is B'Elanna Torres of the Maquis ship Val Jean, do you read me?"

After a moment, an incredulous voice answered. "Please confirm, did you say Torres of the Maquis?"

"Yes," said B'Elanna. "Do you object to a Maquis saving your lives, or would you like to just float around until you fall from orbit or, more likely, get massacred by the ones who blew out the ship's systems?"

Harry moved, like he was going to put a hand on her arm, but evidently thought better of it and retracted the hand. "This is Ensign Kim. She's our best bet to save you. The Kazon disable ships and then board them. You're going to have a ship full of hostile aliens in less than ten minutes, from our scans."

"Just what do you suggest?"

"You got an engineer up there?" B'Elanna asked.

A pause, and then the same voice: "I was second in line, and our chief died in the first volley, so I guess that's me."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, great, second string."

"Lieutenant Carey," cut in Harry, "I guess you're in charge."

"I believe it would be more accurate to say that Ms. Torres is in charge. Mr. Carey's only task is to follow her instructions precisely."

Harry glared at Tuvok, and then immediately faltered at Tuvok's non-expression. B'Elanna aspired to that ability to cow men with a single look.

"Here's what you do," B'Elanna said. "Get all the crew to the engine room and seal the whole place off, you'll have to override the controls to convince the computer that the warp core is in meltdown, and that you need to shut off the core with people inside."

"That won't hold off—"

"I didn't say hold off the Kazon, I said go to the engine room and seal yourselves off. You can't have a messy firefight that close to the warp core anyway. Now get moving."

"You ever hear the saying 'catch more flies with honey'?" Harry asked her, with a cock of an eyebrow.

"Do you know what happens if you try to trap targs with gifts of food?" She shot back.

He frowned. Either he didn't know the answer but understood the point, or he'd seen the same nature holoprograms as she had and was picturing a wild targ, spooked by unusual meat in its territory, going on a rampage.

"Lots of cultures have animal metaphors, Starfleet. Doesn't mean they're always applicable."

"All right," Carey's grating voice came back. "We've got everyone who's still kicking into Engineering and we're entering the overrides. Now what?"

"Are you sealed off completely?" B'Elanna said.

He sighed. Then, "Three, two… yes, we're shut in here."

"Vent the air out of everywhere but Engineering."

"They'll just get at the consoles and re-engage the life support systems."

"Do as I say," she gritted out.

"It would do you well to listen to her," said Tuvok.

" _Fine_. Vented. We're the only ones with air."

She nodded. "Cut off the life support system offline entirely. Destroy it, if you have to."

There was a beat of silence, blessed silence, and then Carey had to ruin it. " _What?_ "

 "It is the only logical solution," Tuvok agreed. "The Kazon have limited technology. They do not keep breathing apparatuses on hand as we do for emergencies, and cannot raid the ship without them. I do advise you locate and prepare the apparatuses, however, as you may run out of air before the systems can be brought back online safely."

"This is crazy," said Carey. "Okay. We're doing it. Just…"

B'Elanna leaned past Tuvok to check the screen's readings. She touched her hand to her ridges briefly, marveling at the level of stupidity rampant in Starfleet. "Why are the shields up only around Engineering?"

"The entire crew is back here!"

"Yes, and shields are a giant, flashing beacon as to where you are and how you _can't really fire back_. Power them down."

"What are we supposed to do, wait around like sitting ducks until they shoot us?"

"No, you're supposed to set up relays to imitate scanner readings for a warp core overload."

"You didn't _say_ that!"

"I shouldn't have to say that playing dead is your only option when you're running a 150-man ship with 34 people."

"Stop arguing and do it," Harry ordered. "B'Elanna, we need to form a backup plan in case they decide to finish off the ship. Can we fire on them from here?"

"We don't have missiles on board that can enter atmosphere from the ground. Well, we _do_ , but—well, we can't use them right now, or I'd have done it."

"I need to update the captain," he said. "Then we can see about getting those missiles to work."

-+-+-+-

**Author's Note:**

> I'll post part two of this tonight or tomorrow. I just wanted to get this part posted today because it's a birthday gift.
> 
> If you recognized some of the dialogue, it's because I originally began this for the Prixin Prompt Comp and was unable to complete it in time because it turned into a monstrously long epic.


End file.
